


Neighbor

by imamaryanne



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Adultery, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 23:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imamaryanne/pseuds/imamaryanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard makes a surprising confession about his neighbor Elizabeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neighbor

**Author's Note:**

> Written many moons ago, but just recently posted at Babysitters100 under the "Neighbor" prompt. A little angstier than I really like. 
> 
> Also, unbetaed. All errors are my own.

I know what you think of me. Believe me, anything you think isn’t something I haven’t thought about myself a thousand times already. Stodgy. Conservative. Old-fashioned. Fussy. And I’m not denying that I am all those things, because I know that I am. 

But even more than being stodgy or old-fashioned, I am a human being. And with that I am the one thing that all humans have in common: I am flawed. Isn’t it our flaws, our lack of perfection, that really ties us together as human beings? I’m not perfect. I haven’t been a perfect father and I haven’t been a perfect man. 

This story that I’m about to tell you is my confession to my deepest secret. The reason I can’t get too mad at my daughter when she makes a human error. Because I know that we’ve all made them. 

_____________

When Mary Anne was four years old, she came running into the house one sunny Saturday morning holding a hair brush out to me. 

“Daddy!” she screeched. “Kristy’s mommy put her hair in braids. Can you put my hair in braids?”

Braids? I looked down at my little daughter, suddenly wishing I’d had a boy. Until this point, I’d just let Mary Anne’s hair grow wild. She’d never even had a haircut, though she was a bald baby and didn’t really start growing any substantive hair until she was nearly two anyway. But now at four, her brown hair was well past her shoulders and constantly in her eyes. 

“I don’t know how to do braids,” I answered. Mary Anne’s face fell. “Maybe you can ask Kristy’s mom to help.” I had a sinking feeling this would just be the first of many times I’d need to ask Elizabeth Thomas to step in and help with Mary Anne’s girly issues. 

“OK,” Mary Anne said, running out of the house. 

Not five minutes later, she came back, Kristy and Elizabeth Thomas in tow. Elizabeth had a big smile on her face. “Richard. You have a four year old daughter. You are just going to have to learn to do braids.”

I smiled. I liked Elizabeth. Despite being overly busy with Kristy and her two older brothers, a full time job, and a shiftless semi-employed husband, she was always willing to watch Mary Anne on evenings when I couldn’t get out of the office on time to relieve the baby sitter. Not only that, after Alma died, she kept providing food for me and Mary Anne long after others drifted away. It’s like she knew that the grieving didn’t automatically stop when the funeral was over. And when I sent Mary Anne to live with Alma’s parents those few months when I could barely lift my head through the cloud of grief and depression in the mornings, she never judged me. I knew others did, but not Elizabeth. In so many ways it’s been a blessing having a neighbor like her. 

Elizabeth and I sat side by side on the living room couch, our daughters sitting crossed-legged on the floor in front of us. Elizabeth was demonstrating making braids on Kristy’s hair. “See, you part down the middle first, then tie one side over with a pony-tail holder. Then work on the other side.” She demonstrated how to separate the hair into three sections and how to fold each section over the middle. By the time we were done, Kristy had two perfect tight braids. Mary Anne’s were much sloppier, but they were definitely braids. I felt oddly proud of myself. 

“They’ll look better with a little practice,” Elizabeth assured me. 

I laughed, “I guess there’s a braiding learning curve.”

“Can we play on the jungle gym?” Mary Anne asked me, twisting her newly braided hair around her fingers. 

“If it’s OK with Kristy’s mom, you may.”

“Go ahead.” Elizabeth and I watched our girls run outside, giggling and climb on the jungle gym I’d had installed in the backyard just two months ago. 

“Thanks,” I said. “If you need to get back to Charlie and Sam, I can watch the girls.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “The boys are at baseball practice for another hour. It was another mom’s turn to carpool.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, can I offer you some tea? Coffee?” By the way she was staring out the window, I had the feeling that she didn’t want to go back to her house. 

“Tea would be lovely. Thank you.”

Elizabeth and I went to the kitchen, where I opened the blinds so we could keep an eye on the girls in the backyard. I opened the refrigerator and removed the pitcher of iced tea, which I had brewed just the day before. I poured two glasses and handed one to her. 

We made idle chit chat about our jobs and the children. We talked about what a great neighborhood it was to raise kids when there was a knock at the door. I answered it and found little Claudia Kishi standing with her mother. “Can Mary Anne come to the park?” Claudia asked excitedly. 

I let them in the house and led Claudia to the back. “Can they both come, mommy?” Claudia asked seeing that Kristy was there as well. 

Ryoko smiled. “Of course they can. If it’s all right with their parents.”

Elizabeth and I said yes, it was fine and the three girls ran off down the street with Ryoko chasing after them. 

 

“Maybe I should....” Elizabeth stood by the door awkwardly. I knew I probably should have sent her away. But I hadn’t had adult interaction outside of work in the longest time. Really, since Alma died, and the thought of her going home made me feel lonely. 

“Stay,” I said lightly. “I’ll make us lunch.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, glancing out the window toward her house. 

I looked out the window and noticed Patrick’s car was gone. “I’m sure,” I said. 

It was while we were eating that Elizabeth admitted her marriage was not going so well. I didn’t want to embarrass her and tell her I already knew that, that really the Kishis and the Goldmans knew it too. You’d have to be deaf not to hear the fighting that occurred in that house. If I had told her, I would have made it clear that I, along with everyone else in the neighborhood, believed Patrick to be at fault. Here Elizabeth was, working full time, doing most of the child-rearing while Patrick lived on dreams of being a journalist. I knew he got only a handful of freelance gigs each year. I have no idea what he did with the rest of his time, because it’s not like he was the one driving the kids around, going to PTA meetings and cooking dinner. From what I could see, that was all Elizabeth. 

And so I don’t know what I was thinking when I leaned over and patted her hand. That I was trying to comfort her, sure. But was it the tiniest bit selfish of me? Because it’d been nearly four years since any contact with a woman? And here was this very nice, very pretty, very vulnerable woman sitting across from me? I’d never looked at Elizabeth in this way before. Never saw her as anything more than a hard-working mom and kind neighbor. 

Elizabeth looked up in surprise when I patted her hand. And I went one step further by reaching up to her face and pushing her hair behind her ear. I don’t know which one of us leaned in first, but there we were, kissing over our half-finished lunch. 

She pulled back first. “I should go.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, standing up. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“No. No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you about Patrick. It suggested that I was open to something...” she trailed off. 

“No.” I insisted. “I was out of line. I should have just listened to you.”

There was a pause and we smiled at each other awkwardly. “I’m just going to go,” she said. 

“Maybe that would be best.”

 

I walked her to the door, handing her Kristy’s hairbrush on the way there. She put her hand on the doorknob, but paused for a moment. She turned and looked at me without saying anything. There were a few more moments pause as she looked like she wanted to say something. I didn’t know what to say, but I sure felt awkward standing there waiting. 

Finally, Elizabeth dropped the hairbrush to the floor and took two steps toward me. Without saying anything, I put my arms around her and we kissed some more. And this time, it wasn’t an awkward over-lunch kiss at the table. This was a full kiss with meaning behind it. Sure, I knew it meant something different to each of us. For her it was passion without the drama of a layabout husband. For me it was the touching, it was feeling a woman when I haven’t since my wife died. 

I had so many opportunities to stop what we did, but I didn’t. I kept kissing her. I pulled her into the bedroom. I undressed her and she undressed me. I didn’t even stop to think about what I was doing and I guessed neither did she, until we were both done, breathing hard and slightly sweaty. 

Who was I? I didn’t recognize myself. This was not steady Richard. This was not dependable Richard. I don’t do things like this. I don’t do anything without first careful consideration and upon carefully considering this, I never would have done it. Sex with another man’s wife? I always thought that is one of the many things you could never count on old Richie Spier ever doing. Ever. 

But here we were, laying in bed, catching our breath beneath the thin sheet. Neither of us quite sure what to say to each other. 

“I’m not really sorry,” she finally said. She sounded bitter. “I haven’t done anything that Patrick hasn’t been doing for years now.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “You’re married. I shouldn’t have gotten carried away.”

Elizabeth patted me on the shoulder. “Getting carried away occasionally is the spice of life.” Her affect was completely flat when she said it. I was not reassured. “I really am going to go now. Charlie and Sam will be home soon.”

I nodded. It really was better that she left now. As I walked her to the door, she turned to me. “This doesn’t have to mean anything. We can just forget it ever happened.” 

___________________

Forget? Not likely. It didn’t even stop there. 

Not to suggest we had some sort of torrid love affair. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t even very often. I mean, we were both adults with a plate full of responsibility. But over the next two years, we did find about five occasions where we were able to get together and have quick, passionless sex. 

 

I didn’t love her and she knew it. She didn’t love me and I knew it. So this thing that we were in the middle of, well, what was it? It was two lonely unhappy people trying to find a few minutes of happiness in this shit storm called Life. 

One summer evening when Mary Anne was six years old, she and I were sitting on the back porch. I was drinking a glass of wine going over some notes for a case and Mary Anne was drinking lemonade and coloring in a Holly Hobby coloring book. That’s when we heard the fight starting from next door. Mary Anne glanced toward the Thomas house with vague curiosity. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. 

The fight was ugly though. Patrick was using Kristy to gain leverage against his wife. It chilled my heart to think of him using his daughter like that. I imagined him facing Elizabeth with Kristy in front of him like a shield. “Kristy is proud of me.” I heard him yell. “She believes in me. She knows I can be a sports reporter.”

“Writing about minor league ball for a small town newspaper? That’s not a living. It doesn’t even cover groceries. That’s a job for a college intern. You’re a grown man. You have three kids. We have a mortgage. How could you even think of taking on this assignment?”

“You’re holding me back.”

“I’m not. I think you’re a talented writer. But you’re lazy and you miss deadlines. You’re holding yourself back.”

“Kristy,” I imagined Patrick kneeling down before his daughter. “Don’t you think it would be neat for daddy to follow a baseball team and write stories about it?”

Kristy, who’d never been a quiet child, shouted “I want you here, Daddy!”

“You’re turning the children against me!” Patrick shouted. 

“Mary Anne,” I said calmly. “Why don’t you go telephone Kristy and see if she’d like to spend the night tonight?”

“Really? And I can use the phone?”

“Yes, you may.”

Mary Anne ran in to the house and picked up the phone. I heard the fighting stop from inside the house momentarily. Mary Anne was talking to Kristy excitedly. “She’s asking her mommy!” Mary Anne called out to me. A few moments later, Elizabeth peeked her head out the window and waved to me. I waved back. Within minutes Kristy was running across the yard to our house, carrying an overnight bag and a teddy bear. 

 

“Thanks, Mr. Spier!” she called as she raced inside and immediately started giggling with Mary Anne. 

Patrick and Elizabeth’s fight continued, a little softer now, but I could still hear them. I couldn’t believe a man in his thirties with his responsibilities at home was willing to take a job that would take him on the road for an entire summer, for so little money. After paying for his own food and lodging, he’d likely have nothing to send home to his wife and children. 

The fight ended as most did, with Patrick storming out of the house and taking off in his car. Kristy and Mary Anne were thankfully oblivious to this, as I had set them up in front of the television to watch cartoons (loudly) until the fight was over.

Bedtime came and I put the girls to bed. “Can we keep talking?” Mary Anne asked. 

“You may talk in the dark for thirty more minutes,” I instructed. They giggled. I shook my head. I knew Mary Anne, and once the lights were out, she’d be sound asleep within fifteen minutes, whether motormouth Kristy was there or not. 

I continued working on my case notes when there was a soft knock at the door at about ten thirty. I answered it and found Elizabeth standing on the front porch. “Thank you.”

I nodded, “You’re welcome.” I glanced over at her house. 

“He’s still gone,” she answered, knowing what I was looking for. 

“Come in,” I moved to the side to let her in. 

“Are the girls asleep?”

“Yes. I put them to bed at nine. They should be out by now.”

“Can you check? Kristy never sleeps well after a fight.”

I went upstairs and quietly opened Mary Anne’s door. The light from the hallway spilled across Kristy’s peacefully sleeping face. She was on her back, one arm hanging off the edge of the trundle bed. I closed the door quietly and tiptoed back down stairs. 

“They’re asleep,” I reassured Elizabeth. 

“Good,” Elizabeth said and lunged toward me, our lips crashing together. She was needy this time, leading me toward the bedroom, while still attached at the lips. She pushed me to the bed and started unbuckling my belt. 

“Do you have...” I started to ask. 

 

She snorted. “Richard. I always put my diaphragm in before coming over here.” I didn’t need to ask, really. This was the same conversation we’d had on every previous encounter. Elizabeth was rather open about not wanting more children. About the fact that she already felt like a single mother most of the time and three kids was all she could handle. More than she could handle, really.

So we were in bed, rocking, thrusting and coming together. Like always it was fast and furious. I think Elizabeth felt like she didn’t have time for a long decadent night. And as for me, well, it’d been a while and my ability to last wasn’t exactly up to par. 

As always, Elizabeth left my house within minutes of finishing. It made me feel a little used, a little cheap. But honestly, I couldn’t blame her. I knew I was nothing more than a stress relief for her. 

____________________

Two months passed and I hadn’t heard from Elizabeth. I’d noticed Patrick returned in his van the next day. And I knew the day he left to start his minor league ball assignment. I knew because Elizabeth and all three kids were crowding around him on the front yard kissing him and wishing him well, asking him to write lots of postcards. 

One day in the middle of summer, Elizabeth crossed the backyard with Kristy in tow. Kristy and Mary Anne immediately began climbing on the jungle gym. 

I poured Elizabeth some tea and we sat at the outdoor table watching the girls. Elizabeth was quiet for a long time before she finally spoke up. “I’m pregnant.”

I choked on my iced tea. Coughing and hacking, probably longer than I needed to in order to collect my thoughts. “Is it mine?”

She shrugged. “It might be. That last night that we were together? It could have happened that night. Of course, it could have been Patrick the next night also.” She paused. “Make-up sex,” she said scornfully. 

“What can I do?” I asked. 

She shrugged again. “I scheduled an abortion then couldn’t go through with it.” She looked at her watch. “It’s scheduled for right now.” 

“So you’re having a baby and it might be mine.” 

She nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m putting Patrick’s name on the birth certificate.”

“You don’t have to.”

 

She laughed bitterly. “What else can I do? I’d have to admit what we’ve been doing. That would hurt both of us.”

“Leave him,” I stressed. “We can get married. I can take care of you and the kids. And this kid,” I added. 

“You’re not thinking this through, Richard.”

“Well, no. I haven’t really had time to think this through. But I have to do the right thing, Elizabeth. I want to do the right thing.”

She looked at me evenly. “The right thing is to let my husband believe that this child is his. And there’s a fifty-fifty shot it is his. You and I can’t get married because we don’t love each other.”

I couldn’t argue with her there. She was right. I’d told myself over and over again that I didn’t love her. I wondered briefly if she was hoping to get me to say that I did love her. But I quickly chased that thought away. A woman like Elizabeth, who’d already seen too much in her thirty years wasn’t likely to be playing head games like that. 

“What if the child looks like me?” I asked. 

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” 

__________________

And so I watched from afar as Elizabeth’s belly grew big and round. I watched her leaving the house in her ninth month, holding on to Patrick’s arm as they made their way to the hospital. They both waved to me, Charlie, Sam, Kristy and Mary Anne standing on the front porch. The older Thomas children were spending the next few nights here. I watched from afar as Elizabeth and Patrick returned home with the baby, David Michael. Named for both of Patrick’s grandfathers. The name seemed like a slap in the face. Particularly when Patrick left home for good when little David Michael was only a few months old. He rarely called and never provided any support. 

This next part? I don’t know what I was thinking. I know tampering with the mail is a federal offense, but I knew Elizabeth was struggling. One day I was home from work, taking care of Mary Anne who had a stomach bug. She was napping when I saw the mail truck pull up. I watched from the front window as my mail was delivered, followed by the Thomas’ mail. As I gathered my mail, I looked around carefully. The Kishi’s house was empty, as was the Goldman’s. 

 

I snuck over to the Thomas’ mail box and rooted through their mail. I noticed the mortgage bill with the words Second Notice stamped across the envelope in bright red ink. My stomach churned with disgust at Patrick Thomas and his refusal to provide for his family. I took the bill. I marched inside and I wrote a check for the mortgage. It really wasn’t just that I thought David Michael might be my son (He was favoring his mother in the looks department), it was that she deserved to have someone do something nice for her. Charlie, Sam and Kristy were good kids and they deserved to have someone looking out for them just because their lazy father wouldn’t do it. 

But that day started a pattern. Every few weeks I would sneak home for a late lunch and check our mail, and check the Thomas’ mail. If I happened to check it and there was a bill in there (and honestly, when isn’t there a bill in the mail?) I’d take it and pay it. 

For some reason, doing this made me more nervous than our affair ever did. I don’t think Elizabeth would be as grateful for this clear act of charity the way she was for the release our affair provided her. And not to mention that what I was doing was clearly illegal and I’m an attorney. If caught stealing mail, I could lose my license to practice. 

I never heard from Elizabeth that some of her bills were mysteriously paid by an anonymous benefactor. I never wanted to. I wanted her to think that Patrick was paying them. Though I’m quite certain she knew what I was doing. And as much as she didn’t want to accept the charity, there was no doubt she needed it. 

Until Watson Brewer came along, of course. 

________________________

So that’s it. That’s my deepest darkest secret. That’s my confession. Elizabeth went on to marry Watson and adopt another child. I went on to marry my high school sweetheart, Sharon. I gained a stepdaughter and stepson. Every time I’d see David Michael Thomas though, I’d look in his eyes, trying to find a hint of something. Trying my hardest to see a resemblance to me, to one of my parents, to Mary Anne. 

Years later, my troubled stepson, Jeff was moving back to Stoneybrook, I was in the high school enrolling him for his junior year. I noticed David Michael standing by a locker talking to another boy. I couldn’t help it, I stopped and stared at him. David Michael, sensing that someone was looking at him, turned and looked at me. And for those few seconds, I swore I was looking into the eyes of my father. He smiled at me briefly, and I caught site of a dimple on his left cheek, in the exact same place my father had a dimple.


End file.
